by Evie Stone

An attendee at a Barack Obama town hall meeting in Dover, NH today put voice to the question that has many of the candidate's supporters worried this week: when will Obama get tough with John McCain? 39-year-old Glenn Grasso asked:

I've been following your campaign from the beginning, this is the second time I've seen you speak. You assured voters in New Hampshire as well as the rest of the country that you would not tolerate Republican attack ads and the smear campaign that's come to really dominate politics. So for those of us that have given you our support — and, more importantly, our money — when and how are you going to start fighting back against attack ads and the smear campaigns?

Obama responded with an accusation you don't often hear politicians make, calling the recent McCain ads "lies." And he promised Grasso that his campaign was planning to respond forcefully.

I know there are a lot of Democrats, and some Independents, and some Republicans, who really want change, who start getting nervous because they've seen this movie before. Every four years — right? — you have ads that are just fabricated. They're just made-up. And...(off-mic Audience Member: Lies!)...lies, that's the word I was looking for. And so people start worrying. Here's what I can guarantee you, that we are going to be hitting back hard. We have been hitting back hard, but we're hitting back on the issues that matter to families.

Well...sort of. This morning's Rubik's cube ad isn't particularly issues-based (unless the Obama camp thinks a candidate's email literacy is a crucial issue for American families). But NPR's David Greene, who is traveling with the Obama campaign, says the candidate did indeed hit McCain hard at today's event. Keeping with today's campaign message, Obama called his opponent "out of touch" with struggling families and linked him, as usual, to President Bush.